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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29961957">dimmer in the gloom</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/leovenus/pseuds/leovenus'>leovenus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous Relationships, Geostigma, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse, as in huge hurt mild comfort, past child abuse is referenced and wrt rufus, rufus shinra being corporatebot2000, set mostly at healen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:02:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,665</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29961957</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/leovenus/pseuds/leovenus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re king of the castle, we’re the kids who do your every bidding," he continues, conjuring in his mind a jungle gym like those in Sector 7 before the Plate came careening down on it - before <i>he</i> brought it crashing down. In his mind's eye the blond boy-king sits lofty at its top, issuing orders in his crown of sticks and leaves. "The adults are chattin' by the side in the shade."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Reno/Rufus Shinra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>dimmer in the gloom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <span class="small">i have been a fan of this pairing for over a decade but it is only now i have tentatively decided to dabble a little in it... i read on the way to a smile and it was like Oh and also [[huh??]] re: typical 7 noncontinuity retconning but anyway... it was interesting (if somewhat baffling) what they put rufus through, and i wanted to touch a little on what that says about who he is underneath the bluster. i hope you enjoy!</span>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The shift change finds Reno at the tail end of a 24-hour stretch of no sleep, taxed as they are on manpower now. Elena is out hunting Nibi bears again for some reason he can’t remember, and Tseng is in Edge more often than not recently - playing pleasant with Shinra’s investors, ear to the ground for what’s left of the company.</p>
<p>That means it’s between him and Rude to work out of and around Healen, taking turns watching over the President, running errands, and taking out persons of interest who happen to be nearby. It’d be easier if they left him be sometimes, of course, but they won’t risk it again - not after he was wrenched from them twice.</p>
<p>Something curls in his gut, feline and displeased, to remember the months of futility when none of their contacts could tell them if he was okay. If he was even alive.</p>
<p>Reno’s gaze darkens. <em>No, never again.</em></p>
<p>Perhaps some of that remains when he opens the door to the highest suite in the lodge after conducting the usual checks on the perimeter. As he peers in to check on his now-assignment he is met with a raised brow, gaze cool blue like the ocean visible from the shores of Costa Del Sol.</p>
<p>“Does it discomfit you to see me like this?” Rufus greets, almost gentle, nearly mocking. His profile is fine-boned, elegantly handsome set against the light. Even in the wasting he has guarded his dignity jealously.</p>
<p>Reno glances behind him, then enters the room, shutting and locking the door. “Well,” he starts, like he’s actually considering the question, “That depen’s on what <em>discomfit </em>means, an’ also what discomfiture you’re talkin’ about.”</p>
<p>It’s the Reno comedy routine. Lean into being dumb, prove that you’re not. He drawls the fancy words with a hint of Rufus’s above-Plate accent, dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s with flourish. The e-mag rod in his left hand pirouettes, lands in a cheeky counterpoint against his palm to drive the punchline home.</p>
<p>Rufus watches him, heavy and liquid. "Does it?" he says, instead.</p>
<p>Reno taps the rod a few more times before letting it drop to swing from his wrist. He shoves his hands into his pockets, takes a casual step in approach. “There’s no one ‘round to watch, Prez,” he murmurs. “You can cut it with the show.”</p>
<p>A nearly forgotten anger seizes Rufus, briefly turning his vision white and causing his jaw to tighten in reflex. <em>A show? </em>he wants to grit out, <em>what’s next? Rufus Shinra learns to do circus tricks?</em></p>
<p>But it is gone as soon as it had come, buried swiftly beneath the snowfall of having died too many times in too short a period. Rufus sags minutely, under Reno’s luminous blue gaze, and closes his eyes. Reno dares to take a step closer.</p>
<p>“No, I suppose there isn’t,” he murmurs, quietly. A brief lull, before the elastic band of his attention seems to snap back into the present and Rufus directs that look like precious gems on him. “Then humour me, Reno."</p>
<p>Reno cocks his head in question, and waits.</p>
<p>"Do you think there is anything left of Shinra Company to rebuild?" There is an echo of a smile carved into that marble face, the anticipation of a game of catch.</p>
<p>Reno shifts his weight from one foot to the other, fiery brows knitted in confusion and something resembling disappointment. He purses his lips, then says, "Ain't like you to pity yourself, boss."</p>
<p>The smile only deepens. "I did not say anything of my own view of the matter."</p>
<p><em>Bullshit</em>, Reno thinks. Instead, he says, "Still performin'." Belatedly, because he's on duty: "Sir."</p>
<p>There's a current thrumming somewhere, growing louder as it spirals further out of control. Reno fixes Rufus with a look, chin tilted defiantly in sharp contrast to the subservience of the address, and waits on the edge of the precipice.</p>
<p>An exhale, at its end a huff inexplicably like laughter.</p>
<p>"As ever, Reno," Rufus says, doesn't fill in the adjective that is supposed to come in the blank. Reno twitches - then turns towards him, takes a slinking step in approach.</p>
<p>"Done with the weird questions?" he asks, dipping a toe into the water. <em>Fuck, but can it get cold</em>. A metre away from the wheelchair he stops, hesitating. "Or do I haveta go back to standing guard outside?"</p>
<p>"No more hypotheticals for now," Rufus says indulgently, the hints of a smile gentling his features. "Come here."</p>
<p>"Why do I have to do all the work," Reno grouches, even as Rufus stands and closes the distance himself, crowding him into a kiss Reno is more than eager to meet. His blazer is pushed off his shoulders to the ground; with a snort about <em>unfairness</em>, Reno slips his own hands under a few layers of heavy white fabric and goes straight for the waistcoat.</p>
<p>Rufus doesn't need the wheelchair, not yet. He is - for now - only seen in it to paint a noble, empathetic picture. <em>One of you</em>, the silhouette says, <em>Shinra will stand by your side to raise Midgar from the ruins.</em></p>
<p>"In preparation," Rufus murmurs into his mouth. The words are said plainly, without embellishment; he arches into the touch when Reno's hands finally reach the rapidly heating skin of his abdomen.</p>
<p>A foreign ache sears through Reno's chest. He uses the grip he has to flip them, pressing his President against the wall and scraping his teeth against the side of his neck. "Hey," he objects, almost warns. "Thought y' said -"</p>
<p>"No more questions from <em>me</em>," Rufus parries, reminding him. His lashes flutter with the hitch in his breathing; his hands reach for Reno's belt buckle, undoing it with little difficulty. "Nothing - nothing about not answering questions <em>you</em> raise."</p>
<p>"Can't believe you're still talkin'," Reno mutters, dissatisfaction eclipsing the twinge for a moment. When Rufus breathes a laugh in reply it rumbles through his chest, curls onto his skin for Reno to lick off with more tenderness than he would admit.</p>
<p>"The bed is that way," Rufus purrs, strange and brilliant and immortally bright. A stray strand of golden hair falls into his eyes; he huffs it aside, pressing their hips together in taunt and invitation. "Easy solution."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Bang. Bang. Bang. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Bang bang bangbangbangbang.</em>
</p>
<p>Rude, standing next to Reno, is first to react. He leaves his post, striding forward with a low, tense "Sir -"</p>
<p>Rufus aims again, and fires, completely off mark. The shot hits a tree, somewhere; birds go scattering in fright. Grip white-knuckled, his arm shakes - but Rufus does not let it fall, eyes still narrowed and following that infinite line to a vanishing point down the barrel of his shotgun.</p>
<p>"Rude." It's all Reno has to say for his partner to still, allowing him to take his place in going to their President. Discreetly, he turns and situates himself so as to take watch facing their flank.</p>
<p>Reno approaches carefully, like he's trying not to frighten a cornered wild animal. Rufus is still shaking - shoulders heaving as he refuses to look away, doesn't drop an arm that must be aching and unable to aim any longer.</p>
<p>"President," Reno tries, circling around to assess the easiest way of disarming him without causing him any harm. "Put the gun down."</p>
<p>Then his brain catches up, counting the shots he'd heard. <em>Ten rounds. He shouldn't have any left</em>. Reno makes an executive decision, shifting into a swift step and going for Rufus's gun arm with a swipe that causes the weapon to fall to the ground.</p>
<p>As Rufus turns to him in reaction Reno twists his arms behind his back, holding them together at the wrist and pushing him lightly forward into the trunk of a nearby tree. A knee settles itself in the small of Rufus's back to keep him in place.</p>
<p>"<em>Reno</em>," Rufus hisses, struggling in vain against the bark. If it had been a fair tussle Reno would've required help; even now Rufus is taller, more built, and a damn good shot. It is only that Reno is faster and had the element of surprise and Rufus's general disorientation on his side. "Let me <em>go</em>."</p>
<p>Reno grunts. "Not 'til ya cool down, Prez," he quips, even as the reason for Rufus's episode slowly begins to sift its way through the fog, makes itself known to him. "You're gonna hurt yourself goin' on like that."</p>
<p>Rufus laughs hollowly. Reno eases up, just a little, mindful of potential scrapes from the bark on his face. <em>Wouldja look at that, </em>he muses. <em>Prez has an incurable disease and I’m worried about whether he’ll stay pretty.</em></p>
<p>“It doesn’t make a difference,” Rufus sneers, but he isn’t fighting anymore. Reno removes the knee, setting it down on the damp grass beneath them, and blows out his cheeks, considering.</p>
<p>“They’ll be alright,” he says, uncertainly. “They’ll come back. We’ll figure out whatever it is y’need the alien head for. We’re Shinra, dammit. There’s always a way.”</p>
<p>“And if they don’t?” <em>And if </em>Tseng<em> doesn’t, </em>Rufus doesn’t need to say, <em>it was only luck he didn’t actually die the last time.</em> There’s something there, in the way Rufus looks at Tseng, but he never says a thing about it, and Reno doesn’t ask.</p>
<p>“Then we deal with’at when it comes,” Reno decides, for all of them. “Worryin’s no good.” Risking a glance at the human target, he adds, “Least of all if it has you of all people shootin’ like a headless Chocobo.”</p>
<p>“I don’t <em>worry</em>,” Rufus snipes, but it’s petulant, almost childlike. Reno loosens his grip experimentally, lets it go altogether when Rufus doesn’t make any sudden movements or twist to fight back.</p>
<p>“Are ya gonna behave now,” Reno comments offhandedly, crossing his arms and shifting all of his weight onto the right leg. He watches Rufus - usually immaculate blond hair tousled, face flushed with emotion, eyes always, always blue.</p>
<p>“Are you going to beat me if I don’t,” Rufus snarks, eyes closed and head tipped back.</p>
<p><em>There’s a story about his old man there</em>, Reno knows. In his earlier days there had been too much mouthy vitriol coming from the boy said to have been perfectly bred for society for there <em>not </em>to have been. It had never escaped their notice that Rufus seemed to have thrice the usual pain tolerance either.</p>
<p>So instead he reaches out, brushes a wheat-gold lock out of Rufus’s eyes, pretends not to notice the way Rufus blooms towards the tender touch.</p>
<p>“Nah, I like my job,” he purrs. “But when we get back, won’t mind ya takin’ out some of that energy on me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rufus can hardly remember the absence of pain - much less what pleasure feels like - with the siren blaring incessantly inside his head, the way it starts in the lesion but emanates out to wrack his entire person.</p>
<p>He quivers with the first wave, knowing the signs by now. He sets the toothbrush down, doesn't even have time to spit, barely navigates himself out of the en-suite bathroom when he is hit by a shockwave of pain. It's the spot in his left thigh that starts it, but that hardly matters when soon the agony tears through his entire body.</p>
<p>For a host of reasons Rufus is no stranger to pain, but the geostigma is something else altogether. He would be hard-pressed to explain what it is; the closest he can come is that the disease seems alive, that it sinks its fingers into wounds with malice, digging through until it reaches the soft marrow of the bone.</p>
<p>He would never say this aloud, of course. Far be it from the last Shinra to fall prey to pithy sentiment. They have enough on their hands as it is.</p>
<p>Rufus doesn't have the time - or lucidity - to have any of these thoughts while he is on the ground, blinded by the acid searing itself into his flesh. He thinks he's gagging on the toothpaste, but can't remember how to spit it out. Dimly he notes that the attacks have been getting more frequent; it used to be hardly once a month, and now this is the second in a week.</p>
<p>In the split second he has between waves he finds enough of himself to press the button on the band attached to his wrist, manages to cough out the foam and roll away instead of into it. He doesn't bother trying to stand; there's no point, and he's proven right when on the next long ragged inhale he is beset by a pain twice as sharp as the first, accompanied by the sickening viscous dampness of the fluid seeping through his clothing, mocking.</p>
<p>It is so violently all-consuming that the involuntary way the spasming of his body causes his head to thud against the ground is almost welcome. <em>Hello</em>, he thinks dully, senses numbed beneath the blaring of his nerve endings and a feeling like nails screeching down chalkboard. Every <em>thunk </em>is its own saviour. <em>Hello. Still here. Alive.</em></p>
<p>He can hear tortured breathing, but it sounds so distant it can hardly be his. Surely it isn’t his voice gasping out, disjointed vocalisations echoing against the timber of the cabin. It can’t be, not when Rufus isn’t sure he’s really still here at all.</p>
<p>From outside of his body he thinks he hears a door click. <em>Please don’t be Reno, </em>he finds himself thinking, unbidden. <em>Gaia. Please. Don’t -</em></p>
<p>A flash of crimson. “Prez -“ Reno stops dead. “Ruf.”</p>
<p>For all the Shinra legacy has destroyed the Planet, he supposes it is wishful thinking to believe she would listen to any of his pleas.</p>
<p>“Ruf. Fuck.” Reno falls silent, and through vision that Rufus has only just realised has begun to blur he makes out knees dropping to his side. Distantly, he becomes aware of the fact that his body has stopped writhing, but he still can’t move. “Stay with me. Fuck. Don’t fall asleep.”</p>
<p><em>But my body is so heavy,</em> he wants to complain. <em>Can’t I rest just a little bit?</em> It sounds, from a further room, like sentences long burned out of his vocabulary. <em>I can’t stand right now, Father. Just a moment’s rest, please. No, I beg you, no more healing materia -</em></p>
<p>A hysterical laugh bubbles its way out of him as he is hauled up in a bridal carry. If only there were materia that could help him now.</p>
<p>“Rufus?” Reno almost sounds relieved. He’s set him down in the bathtub, is already beginning to shed him of his layers. “Hey. I’m gonna getcha outta your clothes so we can get this gunk out, ’kay?”</p>
<p><em>Not the sexiest prelude to undressing but I’ll take it,</em> the same part of him jibes. But nothing comes out of his mouth except a strangled sound, which only makes Reno pause in his attentions, tipping Rufus’s head up to check both of his eyes before he continues in his methodical action.</p>
<p><em>It’s shame</em>, Rufus thinks, <em>that feeling that I am experiencing at the thought of being seen like this, by you of all people</em>. But there is nothing he can do about it; his body has betrayed him. It is no longer his home. Not even a friend.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The stigma eats away at him, incremental, merciless. The wheelchair is less for show, now, especially after episodes. But Rufus Shinra clings to himself desperately; no matter how much it hurts, he never screams.</p>
<p>It is a while after such an attack that Reno stands behind the wheelchair, having wheeled Rufus through the boardwalks to a private platform that overlooks a waterfall.</p>
<p>The doctor they managed to find to pick up the pieces after Kilmister's havoc has pieced together this much about the disease - an autoimmune response to the presence of Jenova cells, she has told them, which is why the elderly and children seem to suffer its effects most violently. So fresh air and a balanced diet are always on the agenda.</p>
<p><em>Your immune system is very strong, sir</em>, she had reported, a perfect balance of clinical and optimistic. <em>You are at a remarkably early stage, considering. Most patients don't live longer than three months</em>. He has held on for two years. He wonders if he should be grateful or curse the fact.</p>
<p>Rufus remembers the black, inky fluid surging towards him in the flood, creeping into his orifices, homing in to kill. Penance, perhaps, for the things Shinra Company did with Jenova. Another item on the list of burdens his father has saddled him with.</p>
<p>They stay there in silence for a while, surrounded only by the gush of water and the faraway calls of birds. Reno shifts, uncomfortably; he's already identified fifty-two spots from which a sniper could be sighting. Fifty-five if they're very flexible.</p>
<p>Rufus speaks. "Reno."</p>
<p>There's no-one else around; it had been Reno who had found him earlier, collapsed and unconscious in a dark putrid pool of the fluid. Nowadays he's almost always on watch duty, which now also includes cleaning Rufus up. They never talk about it. It's just as well; Reno doesn't know how he's supposed to feel. "Yeah?"</p>
<p>Rufus doesn't look at him when he speaks. "Where do you see me, at the end of the world?"</p>
<p>Again with the self-centred questions. Reno almost smiles at the familiarity. It lulls him into a lightness that means he doesn't think when he replies.</p>
<p>"Already came'n went, Ruf."</p>
<p>Rufus's expression shutters briefly. "You are correct," he says. Tinged with no little irony: "How foolish of me to forget." He had lived every second of it in excruciating detail, after all.</p>
<p>The air falls still, stagnant with the misstep. Reno starts to fidget, thinks he might not hate it so much if Kadaj came to pay them a return visit at this very instant.</p>
<p>"Rufus." Pause. "Boss."</p>
<p>A shift in the way the blanket that serves as his hood falls, and Reno feels his hand twitch with the urge to push it aside, feel for hair that he knows is soft under the product worked into it. He resists the urge, takes a deep breath, and lets it out.</p>
<p>"Why don't ya ever scream?"</p>
<p>There is no reaction, as he had expected. Reno chews on his lip, weighing the silence. When it becomes clear Rufus is waiting for an elaboration he continues.</p>
<p>"I don't know what you're goin' through - can't pretend to - but… but 's natural to cry out when you're in pain, yeah? An' it helps, even just a li'l, to release the tension."</p>
<p>He pauses, trying very carefully to work the words out in a way that will make sense. "Guess what I'm sayin' is - why're ya so hard on yourself?" <em>Why can't you let go?</em></p>
<p>Rufus does turn to look at him now, and Reno unconsciously takes another step forward so that he doesn't have to crane his neck so much to face him. A faint smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, but he looks tired, eyes worn hollow and grooves worked into his features from disease and lack of sleep.</p>
<p>"I don't know how to," Rufus says, very simply. One fine golden brow is arched, as if delivering a punchline. There is something almost like regret in the sentence. <em>Regardless of desire I am still the king, even if this isn't much of a throne</em>.</p>
<p>Reno almost startles. He remembers Rufus as a sullen teenager, touring the Shinra Tower looking every inch like he would never be weaned off his silver spoon. Recalls, vividly, the methodic ruthlessness with which he had played AVALANCHE as a tool against his father. Rufus Shinra has never been decisively cruel, but he never used to be anything less than opaque, either.</p>
<p>To find him so openly human now is sobering. <em>What happened t' ya those months you were captured?</em></p>
<p>"Prez," he breathes. Suddenly he has a compulsion to <em>look at him</em>, so Reno hastens clumsily to his knees and pulls the wheelchair towards him so he can cup Rufus's pallid face in both of his hands, knocking their foreheads together as if physical proximity can make up for emotional distance. "Yo. I didn’t mean that."</p>
<p>He pauses, feeling out of depth - how their axis had tilted and spun out of control post-Meteor - and heaves out an exhale. “Look, I...I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>Rufus closes his eyes in response, and when he opens them Reno thinks they may be very faintly moist. His lips draw tight; almost imperceptibly, he leans into the touch.</p>
<p>"Y'know what I think?" he says, running his thumbs up and down the smooth planes of Rufus's face, their noses knocking together messily. On some level he is trying to rid himself of the mental image of Rufus, so pale as to be grey, still and completely unmoving on the ground. <em>You are here. Your skin is warm. And you are breathing.</em></p>
<p>"I think you'd be lookin' out on the world - <em>your</em> world - and givin' us orders. You'd see - fuck'n' - everythin', from that bird's eye view of yours - and you'd say hey Reno, go fuckin' save some children while wavin’ a Shinra flag, or kill some guys or… or some shit. And I'd do it.</p>
<p>"We're Turks, yeah? And we follow your orders. ‘S what we do." He stops, feeling embarrassed and suddenly a little tired. "So… so wherever you'll be then. It don’t really matter, 'cept that we'll be there too."</p>
<p>He lets go, abruptly, scrambling to his feet. Hands flying aimlessly in search of a place to land Reno looks away, suddenly abashed at having said far too much. "Uh, well. …. That’s my 'pinion, anyway, sir." Pause, fidget. “Since y’ asked.”</p>
<p>He misses Tseng and Elena, too. Biding their time here waiting for Strife to agree to save the world again is agonising. He doesn’t know if he’d say what he’s just said if there wasn’t the possibility that at the end of it all their little microcosm would remain just the two of them and Rude, exasperated with their endlessly unstable orbits but honour-bound to stay.</p>
<p>A small voice says, <em>no</em>. <em>Just you and Rude. </em>He ignores it.</p>
<p>Rufus is quiet for a while. Reno waits, as he has learned to, until eventually he straightens imperceptibly in his seat. Like a choice has been made.</p>
<p>There is a hint of warmth in his tone as Rufus navigates his wheelchair so the handles are facing Reno. "I think I'm getting a little tired from all this nature," he intones, smoothly. He makes no mention of Reno's outburst. "Come, now. Let us head back."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“They call us the cabal, ya know,” Reno says, stretched out on white sheets, his vivid red hair everywhere like fresh blood and the twang of iron. “Say we’re playin’ house.” His predator’s eyes are bright under deceptively heavy lids, tracking the minutest shifts in Rufus’s expression.</p>
<p>Rufus hums, non-committal, and curls a finger against the side of Reno’s face, scraping the line of ink there, watching as his lashes flutter and he leans into the touch. It isn’t a cue to stop talking. It’s as much of a <em>go on </em>as he ever gives.</p>
<p>“You’re king of the castle, we’re the kids who do your every bidding," he continues, conjuring in his mind a jungle gym like those in Sector 7 before the Plate came careening down on it - before <em>he</em> brought it crashing down. In his mind's eye the blond boy-king sits lofty at its top, issuing orders in his crown of sticks and leaves. "The adults are chattin' by the side in the shade."</p>
<p>Rufus's hand reaches his jaw. Skims over the pulse just under it, coarse fingers - his gun hand - brushing over the imperceptible tic there. If it had been anyone else, they would be face down on the ground now, gunmetal in mouth, knee to small of back.</p>
<p><em>Not outta the question</em>, Reno thinks lazily, <em>he might like that. </em></p>
<p>"Isn't the aim of that game to dethrone the king, though?" Rufus hums, rattlesnake-soft against the tender brush of his hand, like cool scales on burning sand. "The objective is for the subjects to take his place." Fingers come to rest, splayed, on the side of his neck.</p>
<p>Reno spins around, then, lightning and red hair. It tips the scales - Rufus is toppled onto his back, Reno propped above him as he catches Rufus's hand and brings it to his face. Deliberately, achingly slow, he holds that Mako-bright gaze and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the calloused base of the palm before letting go.</p>
<p>The hand, returned to its owner, tangles immediately into his hair in a tug - he humours it until the last moment, stopping himself inches from impact. Reno luxuriates in the displeasure that seeps into Rufus's gaze, the tightening of the lines at the corner of his eyes.</p>
<p>"Nah," he drawls, in wicked response. This close, he can memorise the long sweep of dusty brown lashes on pale skin almost translucent in sunlight. This close, there's enough gold and blue to drown out the rot they know is creeping through Rufus's veins.</p>
<p>He lowers his mouth to the fine curved shell of a delicate ear, perfectly formed as if with the utmost care. "When it's you, Boss, all bets're off."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re cured f’real,” Reno says, dumbly, running hands over bare unblemished skin. “The stigma’s completely gone.” Like he can believe it less than Rufus can, he repeats himself. “Gone. Not a trace.”</p>
<p>“Tseng seems to believe it was the Cetra,” Rufus murmurs, watching indulgently as Reno tugs the rest of his clothes off, easing them into what was once his sickbed. “The healing waters pooled in her church after the rain.”</p>
<p>Reno stops abruptly, mouth hovering over the sensitive skin at his neck. “Which reminds me,” he says archly. “<em>What</em> was that stunt with the buildin’?”</p>
<p>Rufus widens his eyes in a hypocritical show of mock innocence. “Who, me?” he asks, settling his hands on a slim waist. “I fell out of my wheelchair, that’s all.”</p>
<p>“My ass you did,” Reno bites. “S’pose you’re gonna tell me you fell up the halfway construct’d buildin’ to hang out with baby Seph all alone, too, huh.”</p>
<p>“That part may have been more deliberate,” Rufus allows, taking Reno in hand and beginning to stroke. “But are you really going to continue your interrogation?”</p>
<p>Reno’s lids flutter, fighting to stay open as he keens into the attention. “L-later,” he manages. “You nasty, power-trippin’-“</p>
<p>“Fantastic lay, if I remember your comments to Rude correctly,” Rufus finishes smoothly, thumbing at the tip of Reno’s cock. “You should know, the door to my old office wasn’t soundproof.”</p>
<p>“Glad t’ - <em>ohh</em> - see you’re back to normal,” Reno complains, sinking his teeth into Rufus’s skin and beginning to suck. There was a lesion here, he remembers distinctly. And one in the middle of his chest, and along his right side, and in his left thigh...</p>
<p>If Rufus is aware of what he’s doing, he says nothing of it. He is more pliant than usual, allows Reno to mark him greedily, leaves his mark on Reno in return. "Only today for leisure," he hums, softly. "Tomorrow we rebuild in earnest."</p>
<p>Reno grunts something in response, not interested in engaging verbally with Rufus when he has him beneath him, warm and amenable. Brusquely, he drags his lips up the sharp cut of a jaw for a kiss drenched in hunger, underpinned on both ends by a low, almost palpable relief.</p>
<p>But something is stopping him from placing his hands in that too-gentle hold on either side of Rufus’s fine handsome face, from knocking their foreheads together so all he can see is blue. <em>You did it the other day</em>, one voice murmurs, <em>what’s changed since then?</em></p>
<p><em>He isn’t dying anymore</em>, another replies. <em>It’s a completely different story now</em>.</p>
<p><em>Is it, </em>the first voice asks, skeptical. <em>Should it be?</em></p>
<p>Reno thinks he can be forgiven for ignoring the questions in favour of memorising, anew, the way Rufus Shinra comes apart.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <span class="small">thank you for reading this far if you have... ideally i will be adding on after i have eaten before crisis for myself. ehehe. </span>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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